


I Will Sing You the Song of My People

by songlin



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Child Abuse, Drabble Collection, Dreams, Dysfunctional Family, Family Drama, First Kiss, Gen, Gunplay, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Rough Sex, Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-18
Updated: 2012-05-18
Packaged: 2017-11-05 13:37:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songlin/pseuds/songlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of song-based drabbles for a challenge, featuring:<br/>When John should've kicked Sherlock right the hell out of bed, their first (heavily drugged) kiss, the way Sherlock always did upset Mummy, the few long-term partners of Irene Adler, John's and Sherlock's morning after (the Fall), what goes through John's head as he kills a man, the way Sherlock Holmes looks in the moonlight, Sherlock's bad days, the recreational activities of the consulting criminal and his right-hand man, and why John never wants to hear how long Sherlock would have stayed dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Sing You the Song of My People

**Author's Note:**

> The challenge:  
> 1\. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.  
> 2\. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.  
> 3\. Write a drabble/ficlet related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it’s over. No lingering afterwards!  
> 4\. Do ten of these, then post them.
> 
> Naturally, I chose Sherlock. Unbeta'd, as I didn't really think it was worth the betaing. Figure I may expand one or two in the future if I get bored/blocked.

**[1\. White Demon Love Song by The Killers](http://youtu.be/3TxDn1EMk8A) **

John should have been furious when he woke up to find Sherlock in his bed. Irritated, maybe. Surprised, at the very least. He wasn’t, though.

Instead, he rolled over and grinned. He’d never seen Sherlock asleep before, discounting what could be more accurately titled “drug- or trauma-induced unconsciousness.” It was strange, like the first time you ran into your teacher outside of school. He was still, a state in which he could rarely if ever be found.

As he watched, Sherlock blinked, frowning. “Was I asleep?”

John nipped his lip and nodded. “Like a little babe.”

Sherlock scowled. “Shut up.”

 

**[2\. Dance Me to the End of Love by The Civil Wars](http://youtu.be/W0LZ4wMV3zw) **

Their first kiss should have happened after some near-death experience, the both of them buzzing with adrenaline, someone slamming someone into the doorframe and crushing their mouths together. It halfway does. Sherlock’s drugged to the gills after getting himself thrown into a boat and breaking a rib, and John’s on the sofa on his laptop when Sherlock shoves it onto the table and straddles his lap.

“Sherlock, what--”

“There was--something,” he says, eyelids lowered. “I wanted to try.”

_“Sherlock--”_

Sherlock winds his fingers through the hair on the back of John’s head and forces it back, just enough for it to take only the slightest downward tilt of Sherlock’s head before their lips are at the same level.

“Wanted it,” he whispers, and John shivers.

The lips against his are soft and warm. His mouth still tastes slightly of hospitals, a vague, antiseptic sort of flavor that makes John a little drowsy. Sherlock is an inquisitive kisser, all slowly exploring tongues and soft sighs that John can feel to his  _toes_.

Sherlock’s arm settles across John’s shoulder. He tips his head back and away with a little sigh. “‘M tired,” he slurs. “Take me to bed.”

John does.

 

**[3\. Runs in the Family by Amanda Palmer](http://youtu.be/5i0o3JRaF2g) **

Balthasar Holmes left when Sherlock was six.

It started at the supper table when he had innocently asked if Mummy had changed her perfume.

“No,” she said with a baffled little laugh. “Whatever makes you ask?”

“Because Daddy always smells like his cigars and his car and his brandy and your perfume,” Sherlock chirped, “and today he smells different.”

Viola Holmes met her husband’s eyes across the table. Mycroft cleared his throat uncomfortably.

Their father was gone in two weeks.

The day he left for good, his mother watched the car pull down the driveway and out of sight, turned to Sherlock, and slapped him hard across the face.

After, Sherlock went to Mycroft, not crying despite the tears welling up in his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” Mycroft soothed as he washed his baby brother’s face. “I’ll look out for you.”

Four years later, Mycroft left for uni.

 

**[4\. The Ballad of Mona Lisa by Panic at the Disco](http://youtu.be/gOgpdp3lP8M) **

It would surprise some to know that Irene has been married. Three times now, as a matter of fact. It hasn’t always been on paper, but why bother keeping records when they’re only as good as the people who keep them?

The first was a sweetheart. Godfrey Norton, his name was. He was the first of two men in her life, and she was quite fond of him straight up until the day he raised a hand against her. She took the blow with a calm face. He apologized, promising to change, and Irene forgave him.

It came as a shock to everyone when he died of a heart attack at the tender age of 25.

The second was a bright young thing from New Jersey, a lyric soprano with the Royal Opera House. Irene saw her in Salome and was transported. Irene did try, but she does so get  _bored_. The woman had nothing to talk about besides show business. She had been quite a nice wife, though, and very enamored of Irene, so she was at first reluctant to take the position offered to her in China, however lucrative an opportunity it was. But Irene was encouraging, and the soprano was greedy.

The third? Duchess of Cambridge now. Keep it hush-hush though, sweetheart. A lady doesn’t kiss and tell.

 

**[5\. Cough Syrup by Young the Giant](http://youtu.be/UAsTlnjvetI) **

John’s first morning after, he comes downstairs and sits in his chair for an hour, staring at the wall. He’s expecting Sherlock to come in at any moment, in some state of undress. John will shout at him to put some trousers on, and Sherlock will grumble something incoherent in reply.

The flat is silent.

Sherlock’s first morning after, he watches the sunrise come up from the abandoned boxcar that was his shelter for the night. He wipes at his forehead and comes away with a bit of fake blood he’d missed the night before. He thinks about the sunrise and sunset times in London, and about John’s morning routine, and whether John has woken yet.

“I’m sorry,” he says, though the only thing around to listen is the sun coming up orange behind the clouds.

It’s the first of many mornings that he spends apologizing to no one who can hear. It never gets easier.

 

**[6\. Sick Muse by Metric](http://youtu.be/BEz8N8AT-yo) **

“You’re _insane.”_

Sherlock laughs at this and gives John a harsh bite to the back of his neck. John hisses and squirms. Caught between Sherlock and the door, there’s only so much wriggling he can do, but he needs to do  _something_.

“Say something,” John gasps, as a hand insinuates itself between John’s front and the door and down his trousers. “Talk to me.”

Sherlock leans close, his breath tickling the shell of John’s ear. “When you grabbed him round the neck,” he whispers, “and squeezed, could you feel his pulse? Hammering, I’m sure, like yours is now.”

John moans, rutting desperately up into Sherlock’s fist.

“You pretend to feel guilty for the police,” he says, and John is pleased to hear he’s going a bit breathless himself, “but I don’t think you do.”

John gasps.

“It might be the justice. It might be the pain. But I know the truth.”

His lips are brushing up against John’s ear and his hard cock is grinding into the curve of John’s ass through their trousers. John grits his teeth and  _whines_.

“It’s the  _power.”_

John comes hard, open-mouthed, sandwiched between Sherlock and the door, and doesn’t even hate himself for not feeling in the slightest bit guilty.

 

[ **7\. Because from Across the Universe** ](http://youtu.be/4TJmSKxh7r4)

“I’ve never been to the country,” Sherlock mused.

They are lying in a field of tall grass. The sky glows with starlight above them, the full moon bright enough to see by.

_I’m dreaming,_  John things, and is surprised how sad of it he is.

“Kiss me,” he says, rolling onto his side and settling a hand on Sherlock’s ribs.

Sherlock, smiling, does, slow and languid, until John’s had enough and he wants to see. He pushes Sherlock down onto his back and undresses him in the field, because he wants to see what Sherlock looks like naked by the light of the moon and stars.

The answer: natural, like he was born to be looked at that way. The pale light should wash him out, but it doesn’t. He looks shining, glowing, otherworldly.

“You match it,” John murmurs, as their hips are rolling together in unison. “The night sky.”

Sherlock pulls his head down for a kiss.

 

[ **8\. Sail by AWOLNATION** ](http://youtu.be/gH2efAcmBQM)

_There are days,_  Sherlock thinks,  _when it is all I can do not to burn it all down._

It’s all just so  _dreadful,_  how  _stupid_  everyone is. Even John, who is at least more clever than most, is too much to bear sometimes. When those days come, Sherlock has nothing to do but to lock himself in his room and hide in his head until he’s shouting inside his skull, trying to make something happen.

These are the bad days, when he thinks about cocaine highs and the lovely clarity of stimulants, about syringes and scalpels and guns.

But he hasn’t. Not yet.

 

[ **9\. Come Alive (War of the Roses) by Janelle Monae** ](http://youtu.be/mxvEn9wNkBQ)

“I want you to fuck me,” Jim drawls, one fingernail trailing down the outside of Sebastian’s bicep, “with your gun.”

There are about a dozen reasons this is a truly godawful idea, Sebastian knows. He knows just as well that Jim’s not listening to a one of them.

“Which one?”

Ten minutes later, Jim’s on all fours on the floor of the sitting room and Sebastian’s sliding four lubed fingers in and out of him. Jim’s pushing back with every stroke out. Sebastian’s so hard it aches, just from knowing what he’s about to do.

“Come on,” Jim chants, “come on, come on,  _come ON!”_

“I’m fucking  _on it,”_  Sebastian snarls, drawing his fingers out and rolling a condom down the Glock.

He will go to his grave denying it, but the moment Sebastian pushed the gun into Jim Moriarty, hands slow and steady and pulse hammering, he came in his pants completely untouched.

 

[ **10\. Sure as Hell Not Jesus by Cosmo Jarvis** ](http://youtu.be/jKB1vQSIfRg)

Sherlock wanted to stay away for years. Two, at least. Three would be best.

He lasts three  _weeks_.

“I’m sorry, John,” he gasps out, on the door outside his bedsit, soaking wet, at three in the morning. “I owe you a thousand apologies.”

John gives him the chance to explain before hitting him across the face, which Sherlock thought both fair and highly characteristic of their relationship.

“Well,” John says after, as he ices his hand and Sherlock ices his eye, “if they’re after the two of us, we’d better stay out of their reach, right?”

Sherlock grins. “John,” he says, “you are an extraordinary man.”

John grins back.

Three years later, he tells John how long he’d planned to stay dead. John goes very white and tells him quite quickly that he’d best stop talking or he was going to get punched in the face again.

“Sherlock,” he says, voice low and hard, “I could not have made it three years. Do you hear me? I couldn’t. I’d have lived, maybe, but it would’ve been...not good. So don’t talk about it that way, like you could have just...died. For  _years_. I couldn’t have done it.”

Sherlock looks utterly taken aback.

“My dear John, neither could I.”


End file.
